Ito Hirofumi couldn't help but swallow hard.
The pressure emanating from Uchiha Madara was overwhelming—suffocating, even.
This was the man who had taken on the entire Allied Shinobi Forces alone, summoned the Ten Tails, and forced the entire world to its knees during the Fourth Great Ninja War.
And Hirofumi? He wasn't even a proper Genin yet.
The sheer presence of Madara made him feel like he was staring at a natural disaster.
At first, Hirofumi had been euphoric after summoning such a legendary figure. But now reality set in—
How could someone like Madara accept being treated as a summoned beast?
If Madara realized what was happening—
Wouldn't he just swat him like a fly?
"System!!!" Hirofumi mentally screamed in panic.
[I am here!]
"Uchiha Madara is officially bound as my summoned beast, right?!"
[Correct! The golden summoning was successful. The contract has been established.]
"Then—then—he can't kill me, right?! I mean, what if he slaps me out of existence on a whim?!"
[The undead summoned through this system follow the same summoner-contract rules as traditional summoning beasts.
They cannot attack or harm their summoner directly.
However, the system cannot interfere with the summoned individual's personality or behavior.]
[Because of the undead nature of the summon, the host's body has generated a personal summoning dimension—
a space similar to the inner realm of Uzumaki Naruto, where Kurama was sealed.
Summoned souls will temporarily reside in this space and are tethered to the host's life force.
If the host dies, the system collapses, and the summoned soul returns to the Spirit Realm.]
"A summoning space… like Naruto's seal with Kurama?"
[Yes—functionally similar, though tailored for undead spiritual bonding rather than tailed beasts.]
Hirofumi exhaled in relief.
At least he didn't have to worry about Madara vaporizing him out of boredom.
And what's more—Madara couldn't let him die. If Hirofumi died, the system would vanish, and Madara would be forcibly returned to the afterlife.
In a way… this was a form of resurrection. Not perfect, but something in between.
And wasn't resurrection exactly what Madara had sought his entire life?
To be alive again, at full strength?
Now he was here, his body reformed, his power palpable.
"Hey. Brat. I'm talking to you."
Madara's voice cut like a blade through the mist.
By now, he had already taken stock of his condition.
His form was fully reconstructed—no Edo Tensei cracks, no reanimation chalky skin. This was a body of flesh and blood, restored to its prime.
Yet something was… off. His chakra—vast and potent—was tethered to another presence.
The boy in front of him.
It was undeniably a summoning contract. But one that bound him, Uchiha Madara, to this scrawny child?!
Who the hell was this kid?!
He focused his Sharingan on Hirofumi, analyzing his meager chakra signature.
Laughable. Weak. Not even Chunin-level.
He could crush this boy with a twitch.
"Uchiha Madara!" Hirofumi called out, voice shaking but determined.
He lifted his chin and met those crimson eyes. "I know who you are."
"…You know my name?"
Madara narrowed his eyes. He didn't sense any Uchiha chakra in the boy… yet the name was spoken without hesitation.
Could he be a descendant?
But the name didn't match…
"Introduce yourself," Madara said with a scowl. "Who are you?"
"My name is Ito Hirofumi."
"Ito?" Madara repeated, frowning. The name wasn't one he recognized from any major clan.
And certainly not one from Uchiha lineage.
The boy's face was striking, almost noble in its features, but his chakra… it was just so weak.
"Is that supposed to mean something?" Madara muttered under his breath. "Don't tell me the Uchiha have fallen so far that even our summoners are this fragile…"
After hearing the boy's surname, Uchiha Madara's frown deepened.
He hadn't sensed a trace of Uchiha chakra from this child, but now it was confirmed—
this brat was not a descendant of the Uchiha Clan.
That made sense, actually.
How could someone with Uchiha blood be this weak?
"Tch. That explains it."
Madara crossed his arms, his crimson Sharingan glinting with cold disdain.
"My name is Ito Hirofumi," Hirofumi said, steeling his voice. "I'm from the Hidden Leaf Village, in the Land of Fire!"
"Konoha?!"
At the sound of that word, Madara's entire expression shifted.
His eyes narrowed, and a storm of emotions passed across his face—anger, nostalgia, bitterness, and something like longing.
Konoha—the village he helped build with Hashirama Senju, and the same one that, in his eyes, had betrayed everything it once stood for.
"You… you brat from Konoha," Madara growled. "You're going to explain everything.
If I'm not mistaken, this is still the afterlife, isn't it?
Then how are you here, alive? And what the hell happened to me?!
Why am I in this strange half-resurrected state?!"
Ito Hirofumi knew he needed to think carefully.
There was no way he could reveal the system. That secret was his alone.
But how could he possibly explain Madara's resurrection—and the fact that he was now his summoned beast?
He paused for a few seconds, then took a deep breath.
"I get that you're confused," Hirofumi said. "But I need you to calm down and listen.
I didn't come here on purpose. I was reverse-summoned… into the world of the dead."
"Reverse-summoned?"
Madara's brows twitched. Of course, he understood the concept—it was a rare phenomenon where a summoner is accidentally pulled to the realm of the summoned.
But this? A living person summoned into the world of the dead?
Impossible. He'd never heard of anything like that, not even during his time as Ten Tails' Jinchūriki.
"And what," Madara sneered, "does that have to do with me?"
Hirofumi nodded slowly, choosing his words with care.
"When I got here," he began, "I… ended up signing a contract with the realm of the dead.
In exchange for a certain price, I was given the ability to summon spirits—shinobi souls—from this world."
He looked Madara in the eye.
"And you—Uchiha Madara—are the first soul I signed as my summoning beast.
Originally, you should've only appeared in your soul flame form, but when I used the golden summoning…
you manifested in full—body, chakra, and consciousness."
Madara had gone still.
He hadn't spoken to anyone in what felt like decades, and now he was listening to a boy claim to have summoned him back to life.
As a summoning beast?!
At first, he was intrigued by the absurdity of the story. But the moment Hirofumi used the phrase "summoning beast," something inside Madara snapped.
"…What did you just say?" he said, his voice dangerously low.
Summoned?
Beast?
Ridiculous.
He was Uchiha Madara.
The man who fought Senju Hashirama to a draw.
The man who founded Konohagakure.
The man who brought the entire shinobi world to its knees during the Fourth Great War.
The man destined to rule over the Infinite Tsukuyomi.
And now this weak little worm claimed he was his… pet?
"UNFORGIVABLE!!!"
BOOM!!!
In an instant, an overwhelming chakra pressure exploded from Madara's body—
an ominous violet light that tore through the skies of the afterlife like a pillar of wrath.
Even in the living world, only a handful of people had ever felt chakra like this.
Ito Hirofumi's knees buckled under the sheer weight of it, and cold sweat trickled down his back.
But he clenched his fists. He had to stay calm. Madara couldn't harm him.
The system had guaranteed that.
Still, his heart pounded in his chest like a war drum.
"Kid!!!" Madara roared as he stepped forward, eyes glowing. "Do you know what you're saying?!"
His hand shot out, fingers spread wide as he reached for Hirofumi's neck—
He would teach this impudent child the price of blasphemy.
But—
He couldn't move.
Madara's hand froze midair. His fingers trembled, unable to go any further.
It was as if his body had hit an invisible wall.
"What the—?!"
Madara stared down at his own arm, then at Hirofumi, then back again.
It was as if his entire nervous system had been hijacked.
He couldn't control his own muscles. Couldn't force himself forward. Couldn't even twitch an eyebrow.
"Brat! What did you do to me?!
Why can't I move?! What the hell is wrong with my body?!"